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Statement: National Skills Conference and Awards 2017

MEDIA STATEMENT

THE NATIONAL SKILLS AUTHORITY HOSTS A SUCCESSFULTWO DAY NATIONAL SKILLS CONFERENCE

24 March 2017

The National Skills Authority (NSA), together with the Department of Higher Education and Training had a successful National Skills Conference which took place at Saint George Hotel, Irene in Pretoria.

The conference, attended by the Deputy President, Mr Cyril Ramaphosa and the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande on the second day, was made up of delegates who represented amongst others government, organised business, organised labour, community, training providers, Human Resource Development Council South Africa, Quality Councils, Sector Education and Training Authorities, Universities, Provincial Skills Development Forums and Technical and Vocational Education and Training.

Introducing the Deputy President, the Minister of Higher Education and Training thanked the National Skills Authority and the delegates of their continued commitment in making sure the solutions are sought for the country’s skills development challenges.

“At its essence, the National Skills Conference is about the future of our country. It is about the skills and the capabilities that will enable our young people to build a prosperous, equitable and just society. It is mainly about ending the cycle of poverty” said the Deputy President.

The Deputy President applauded the conference for putting skills development at the centre of the country’s national agenda. He highlighted that he subscribed to the notion of the conference theme since it squarely aligns itself with the spirit of the National Development plan 2030 that we should “Build a strong relationship between the college sector and industry. He also encouraged cooperation as necessary between managers of institution and students, between educational institutions and employers, between universities and TVET Colleges.

“Gathered here today are South Africans from all corners of our land, people with different backgrounds, different responsibilities, different perspectives, but who share a common vision of a united, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous society”, he said in closing and encouraged a patriotic South Africa where we work together to find solutions to our challenges, where dialogue, reason and consensus triumph over insults, violence and intimidation.

It was also the presentations that were given on the first day of the conference that really allowed the conference to engage on a variety of matters around skills development challenges in the country.

These presentations allowed a platform for a question and answer session and really set a tone for the discussions during the breakaway commissions which engaged in a quest to find and propose solutions in the ongoing challenges our country is experiencing regards skills development.

The following are the outcomes and proposals of the commissions during the conference:

Improve skills planning and forecasting

Strengthen governance of SETAs and ensure legislative alignment and separation of powers

Develop an NSDS monitoring and evaluation framework

Strengthen the NSA oversight role to monitor the implementation of the NSDS

Post 2020 NSDS to focus on long term planning, ensure integration of NSDS to key national strategies e.g HRDSA, NDP

Investigate the effectiveness and employability/destination of TVET programmes

Strengthen the involvement of community colleges in the post-school education and training system

Ensure skills transfer

Acceleration of Recognition of Prior Learning programmes and consideration of E-learning

The need for NSA visibility and provincial footprints (Consultation with Provinces on scarce skills)

Strengthen the capacity of the QCTO (financial, human, etc)

Constituencies pledged their support towards the implementation of the NSDS and post-school education system

There was also the NSA Awards ceremony which took place on 23 March 2017. The aim of the NSA Awards ceremony was to celebrate excellence by recognising best skills development practices across all skills development implementers and National Skills Funded Projects in various categories. The NSA Chairperson, Ms Lulama Nare said the NSA Awards Ceremony recognises the good work done by men and women of our beautiful country charged also with the responsibility of developing our people with requisite skills for the socio-economic upliftment and inclusive growth path.

The winners were as follows:

NSDS Goal

Category

Recipient

Name of Company

Goal 4.2

Increasing access to

occupationally‐directed

programmes

Best Artisan Development Programme

Best Large company

Bronze ( Position 3) Sibanye Gold

Silver (Position 2) Anglo American

Gold (Position 1) Algoa Bus Company

Best Provincial Department

Silver (Position 2 KZN Department of Transport

Gold (Position 1) Gauteng City Region Academy (GCRA)

Best Municipality

Bronze Ugu District Municipality

Best Small (SMME)

Bronze ( Position 3) SSACI

Silver (Position 2) Aranda Textiles Mills

Gold (Position 1) Novus Academy

Best TVET College

Bronze ( Position 3) West Coast TVET College

Silver (Position 2) Lephalale TVET College

Gold (Position 1) Umfolozi TVET College

Best private college

Colliery Training College

Goal 4.3

Promoting the growth of a

public TVET College system

that is responsive to sector, local, regional and national skills needs and priorities